Desktop Computers

Desktops provide the essentials of computer functions you would most commonly find in a household computer, such as web browsing, word processing, email, and spreadsheet programs.

Where general functions and simple software programs are required, desktops prove useful. Desktops can reliable last two or three years if you use them as intended: occasionally.

Workstations

Workstations are built to do work. They have greater performance, and longer life spans, lasting more than three years under daily continual use. They have a higher computing power than desktops and better graphics capabilities.

A workstation is used for engineering applications such as CAD, desktop publishing and software development, and usually comes with a high definition screen.

Workstations are a must for engineering, graphic designers, and of course gamers. Employees who run MS Outlook, accounting software and business management software also benefit from using workstations because it speeds up what they can do in a day.

To summarize, here is an at-a-glance look at some of the major differences:

Whether you choose a desktop or a workstation for your next computer purchase, be sure to consider your needs, expectations, and budget. Choosing the right computer could be the difference between a disappointing, frustrating experience and a profitable, fulfilling one.

If you need help determining the kind of computer you need, or simply want to order hardware, contact us at 403-986-1144 or email support@redease.com.

RFID is the method of identifying and tracking an object via an attached tag that emits a radio signal. RFID has many applications, from tracking goods being transported, to garments at a dry cleaner’s.

There are two kinds of RFID tags: active or passive.

Active RFID tags have an internal battery, setting them apart from passive tags. Active tags constantly transmit to a reader that picks up the signal.

They have a greater range than a passive tag, and tend to be larger and more expensive. Active tags last as long as their battery lasts. Active tags with a slower transmission rate may last longer as they use less battery power.

Passive RFID tags have no internal energy source, and do not emit a signal unless they are charged by the signal reader. They have an antennae or receiving coil that stores energy from the reader. Passive tags only transmit a signal when they are charged by a reader.
Passive tags are usually smaller than active tags, less expensive, and can last for many years. The range of a passive tag varies from a centimetre to several metres.

Matthew Edwards, President of RedEase Computer Support, is an expert technologist with experience in business process re-engineering. If you need help streamlining your business processes to optimize efficiency and productivity, give us a call at 403-986-1144.

After you install a version of Microsoft Windows, you may want to change the product key to something easier to remember. Follow these steps to change the product key for Microsoft Office 2013, Office 2010 or Visio 2010: (You must be online.)

• Go to Start Menu > Control Panel > Programs (Uninstall a program)

• Click on Program and Features
• Locate your version of Windows from the list, select it, and click on “Change”

• Select “Enter a Product Key” from the window that pops up and click “Continue”
• Type in your new product key and click on “Attempt to automatically activate my product online.”
• Click on Continue > Install Now

You will need to change your product key after installing Windows Vista or Windows 7 for the software to activate properly. Follow these step for Windows Vista and Windows 7:

• Go to Start Menu and type “cmdor command prompt” in the search box
• Right click on the Command Prompt shortcut and select “Run As Administrator”
• At the command prompt, type “slmgr.vbs -ipk” followed by your new product key.
• After you have changed the product key, you can activate the Windows type using the shortcut “slmgr.vbs – ato.” Activation should be automatic.

If you are reinstalling Microsoft Office 2007, but did not previously rename your product key, you will need to locate it. It will have either been emailed to you, or was located on a sticker on the CD or in the manual.

If you no longer have the sticker, there is a way to get it. It’s encrypted on the registry. You will need to download a product key finder. There are a number of free ones available. Follow these steps:

• Download a free product key finding program that supports Microsoft Office 2007
• Download and run the program, following prompts given by the software
• The numbers and letters displayed are your product key (five sets of letters and numbers) 
• Write down your key exactly as shown

For further assistance with Microsoft Windows or any other computer related issue, feel free to contact RedEase Computer Support at 403-986-1144.

First, you’ll need to connect the Twitter account you want associated with your Facebook business page, to your personal profile on Facebook. There doesn’t seem to be a way around this – you have to connect to a personal profile first. Follow these steps:

• Sign into your Twitter account - Navigate to Settings>Profile, and scroll to the bottom of the page where it has the connect to Facebook icon.
• Click “Allow”
• Save changes

Your Twitter account is now connected to your Facebook profile. Now you can connect to a business page by:

• Unchecking “post to my Facebook profile,” selecting your business page from the drop down menu, and checking on “post to my Facebook page.”
• Click “Allow”
• Save changes

You may also find these links useful:

Twitter help page.

How to link to Twitter.

For help with this or any other computer-related problem, contact us or call 403-986-1144.

Using a free or included website domain name won’t strengthen your brand as much as hosting your own website would. When you use a free domain name, you’re sharing it with several other businesses, that’s only distinguished by a portion of the domain name. It doesn’t look professional, either.

Availability and reputation is also a potential issue. Companies that supply free websites are usually interested in extracting all of the ad revenue they can out of your sites. They don’t necessarily care if your website is running properly all of the time. As long as people are still clicking on ads somewhere, they are making money.

Free website providers aren’t picky about what they’re advertising, either. Would you like for somebody to go to your website and see an advertisement for your competitor? Internet Service Providers (ISPs) don’t focus on their client’s websites. Their primary purpose is providing connectivity. In our experience, these sites are often slow and go offline without notice. ISPs tend to be unresponsive to the needs of the individual customer in this regard.

Using a free or included website doesn’t give you much flexibility. You are locked into the name you are using with the provider. You cannot change your website provider without rebranding everything, and sometimes you have to redo your entire website.

Getting your own domain name isn’t expensive. In fact, buying a domain from a registrar like GoDaddy or Webnames usually costs between $12 to $25 per year, depending on the registrar. You can use an old computer in your basement to run your website, you can use a server on the internet, or you could even use servers that scale up and down depending on the traffic to your website.

For more information on hosting your own domain name, refer to our previous article about email domain names or contact us.

The most common way computers  are infected is when you click on things you shouldn’t, whether it’s a link in an email or a “Play Now” button in a pop-up ad. These fake download or play buttons are usually on torrent or downloading sites. You may be trying to download a legitimate program, but these fake downloads are deceptive. If it’s not a website you are familiar with, always check the status bar to see if the domain is the same as the site you’re on. If it’s not, that’s a red flag.

If you’re trying to watch a video from a public torrent site and get a message that you need to download a specific video player, don’t do it. It’s most likely not a real video. Use a VLC media player. VLC is a free, cross-platform player produced under VideoLAN that plays virtually all audio and video formats. If it doesn’t work on that, then it’s definitely not a real video.

Pop-ups that say a virus has been detected are often malware, but how do you tell the difference from them and your own anti-virus software? If the pop-up ad shows up when you’re on the Internet, and goes away when you shut down your browser, then it wasn’t a real virus. Unless you started a scan yourself, it’s probably not coming from your software. If you’re getting warning messages from anti-virus software you never installed, your computer is probably already infected.

When in doubt of the safety of websites you’re visiting, install an add-on such as Web of Trust (WOT) that rates the safety of websites and links in your browser.

When it comes to email, it’s probably safest to delete any junk mail forwards, even from your safelist contacts. These are incubators for viruses and your friends may be passing them on unknowingly. Anything but a basic text and photo email is a potential hazard to your computer. Be especially wary of all .exe files.

Beware of all forms of scams. One that has been in the news a lot lately is so-called “support agents” cold-calling your house and alerting you that there is a problem with your computer. They will then ask for remote control of your computer. Just hang up. They are trying to steal your personal information and your money.

One simple thing you can do to amp up your security is to use a browser other than Internet Explorer. As it is the most commonly used browser, it’s the most targeted by hackers. You may find you like the benefits that other browsers provide anyways. Try Firefox or Google Chrome.
Creating strong passwords is essential to the health of your computer as well as keeping your information confidential. A strong password isn’t too short (minimum eight characters), has a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, punctuation marks and numbers. Don’t use passwords that contain any personal information (birthdays, dates, etc.) or common words. In fact, the best passwords are completely random characters. These will be harder to remember, but if you keep all your passwords in a protected document, you won’t need to worry.

Creating user accounts on your computer instead of just using the default administration account can help protect your computer. If you only use the administrator account to make big changes, it can prevent permanent damage being done if and when your computer does become infected.

Even the most scrupulous Internet surfers can get hit with a virus. It’s still pertinent to get anti-virus software. We recommend Microsoft Security Essentials. Norton Anti-Virus is also okay, but keep in mind, it can block some collaboration tools you use for business, such as online meetings with TeamViewer.

The last thing you should consider is if your firewall is operating properly. Windows and Mac systems both come with built in firewalls. You need to make sure yours is turned on and the settings are configured the way you want. In advanced settings, you can set your firewall up to block suspicious traffic, incoming or outbound, and warn you of problems.

In insure against the event that all else fails and your computer crashes, make sure all your important data is backed up. There are a number of ways to do this, from online backup to portable data storage devices.

If you need help removing vicious software, backing up your data, or for any other computer support-related issue, please contact us at support@redease.com or call us at 403-986-1144.

This presents some interesting questions.

The first question is, what happens if you switch Internet providers? When you switch providers, it is usually very difficult or impossible to keep your email addresses. You then have to reprint all of your marketing material and let all of your customers know about the change. It is not very likely that all your customers will take note of the change, and people will still try and use your old email addresses. Opportunities are going to be missed, simply because existing and potential customers can’t get in contact with you.

The second question is, how reliable are the included and “free” email addresses? Email is usually overlooked by ISPs, as it is not their primary business. Most ISPs that supply Internet to small businesses are one of a very few choices to get connected.

In our experience, email supplied by included and free email addresses have many problems with reputation and availability – both of which mean that critical email may not be able to reach, or be delivered by, your business. With any of these free email providers, there is no warranty of availability. Their revenue usually comes from advertisements, and as long as the advertisements are viewed, they get money.

The third question is, how do these email addresses appear to your customers? As a professional company, would you like your signage to read something like, “Harry’s Plumbing (at) John’s Mall,” or just “Harry’s Plumbing”? Of course, businesses choose to brand their own distinctive way, with their own distinctive signage, rather than sharing a common name with their own prefix. So why do small businesses continue to use email addresses with the suffix shared by thousands of other small businesses?

Websites are another area where your own domain name has its advantages. Rather than having www.telus.net/harrysplumbing as your web address and be at the mercy of your ISP or another free web provider, why not just have your website as www.harrysplumbing.com?

A lot of small businesses will look at the above questions and say that it is all nice and good to have professional, distinctive email addresses and websites, but are concerned about the cost and complexity. In reality, it’s not that difficult to get setup with your own domain name. There are a few different components to keep in mind here:

First, is your actual domain name. Domains are supplied by companies called “registrars.” A few famous registrars are GoDaddy, Network Solutions, and Webnames. Domain names are currently supplied for the cost of around $5 to $20 per year. When you register your domain name, there are a couple of very important things to keep in mind. You will need to remember your login details to the registrar and keep control of the administrative contact’s email address.

Second, is DNS. DNS is how the Internet is named, how it directs you to the appropriate places when you type in something like www.google.com. DNS is typically provided by the same registrars that supply your domain name, but can also be supplied by third party companies.

Third, is your actual email provider. You have your choice of email providers, whether it’s your registrar, DNS provider, or another company entirely. There are a variety of different options for email providers, ranging from the simple inexpensive email providers to complete solution providers including email, calendaring, and contacts. They range in cost, from as low as $5 per month for your entire organization to $25 per mailbox and up. Of course, when you are choosing an email provider, keep in mind that if you are paying $5 per month for your entire organization, quality and availability are probably going to suffer as well.

Fourth, is your web provider. As with your email provider, you have a choice of web providers, again ranging in cost from $5 per month for your entire organization to hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month, depending on your needs.

Both your email and web providers can be switched over quite rapidly, even real time, in anticipation of user demands. You can mix and match your domain provider, DNS host, email host, and website host to suit your needs. You are no longer tied in to any one provider, and you have a professional domain name. Options are limitless for companies, and you can appear to be as big or as small as you like when you use your own domain name.

We are basing this comparison on an average small business server with 500 GB of storage and the proper backup policies in place. This sample server includes five user licenses and costs around $3,800. Currently, the cost for additional five user licenses is about $310. Comparatively, Office 365 (on Cloud) with an Exchange P1 license is about $4.10 per user, per month.

Five Employees

With five employees, the difference between the two systems, on a pure cost basis, is obvious. At the five-year mark, the cost of an on-premise server is more than double the overall cost of the cloud solution.

10 employees

At 10 employees, the cost of an on-premise solution is a little more than double the cost of an on cloud solution. Again, from a pure cost perspective, the on-premise solution costs more than the cloud solution.

20 employees

At 20 employees, the on-cloud cost exceeds the on-premise cost at about the five-year mark. From a pure cost perspective, it seems to make sense to have an on premise server. However, with an on-premise server, you have to consider the costs of excess electricity consumption for a server that’s always on, an upgraded internet connection, dealing with spam issues and ensuring that your server doesn’t become “blacklisted” on the internet. You should also keep in mind that Office 365 currently offers 25 GB mailboxes for each user – whereas the server in this example would have to have upgraded hard drives and backup solutions in order to offer 25 GB of mailbox size for each user.

Summary

Office 365 appears to be for small businesses who want big-business email systems. It takes away the hassles and the costs of managing your own email.

There are three types of signatures that you can embed – images, typed, or you can even draw it yourself. All three signatures are inserted the same way. When you open a PDF document in Adobe Reader, click on the ‘Sign’ button in the top right hand corner of the screen.

There are a couple different options here – you can either add text or ‘Place Signature’. In this particular tutorial we will show you how to ‘place’, or insert, a signature. First, click on ‘Place Signature’, a dialog box will come up, and you can draw a signature.

If you don’t like the way your signature is looking, don’t worry. If you click on ‘Clear Signature,’ this will start you off again with a blank slate. Once the signature is looking the way you would like, click on ‘Accept.’

The second option is to have a typed signature. Since you already have a signature set, you will need to clear the saved signature. To do this, click on the arrow beside the ‘Place Signature’ dropdown and left click on ‘Clear Saved Signature.’ This is how you can place multiple signatures on a document.

From the dropdown list below ‘How would you like to create your signature,’ select ‘Type my signature.’ You then type whatever you want the signature to be – you have the choice of three different styles which you can toggle with the ‘Change Signature Style’ button.

The third option is to use an image. First, ensure that you have cleared the old signature as above. Then, in the dropdown box below ‘How would you like to create your signature’, select ‘Use an image.’ Clicking on the Browse button will allow you to select an image file to use. The supported formats are PDF, jpg, png, gif, tiff, and bmp.

With any of the above three methods, the signature should now be visible. You can move it around to wherever you would like to place. Once you’re happy with the position of the signature, simply left-click and it will embed the image.

Once this is complete, you need to click on ‘Done Signing.’ This will then bring up a dialog box warning you that the signatures or added text will permanently be merged into the PDF. Once you click confirm, it will ask where you want to save the signed PDF and the PDF that is saved will be permanently signed.

Flag contacts and e-mails for follow-up to add a reminder to take care of it later. A flagged item appears in the To-Do Bar, the Daily Task List in Calendar, as well as the Task Module.

Default Flags

Outlook 2007 includes default flags that allow you to quickly set when an item needs your attention: Today, Tomorrow, Next Week, No Date, or Custom.

Later versions of Outlook have replaced these default flags with a colour-coding system. Different colours indicate different levels of urgency. For example, red flags indicate immediate attention is required, whereas a blue flag is less urgent. When you add a flag to an e-mail message, the background colour of the Flag Status column changes colour as well.

Adding or Removing a Flag For E-mails

To flag an e-mail, left-click on the flag icon next to the e-mail in Mail view. This sets the item to be completed “Today.” To choose a different date, right-click the flag icon and select a default flag from the drop-down menu. To remove a flag from an e-mail, right click on the flag and choose “Clear Flag.”

For Contacts

To flag a contact, go to “Contacts,” and click on the flag icon in the tool bar. Choose a default flag from the drop-down menu, or customize one. Flagged contacts appear in the Contact table views and the To-Do Bar. To remove a flag from a contact, right click on the flag and choose “Clear Flag.”

Add a Reminder

Reminders can be added to flagged items by right-clicking on the flag, and choosing “Add Reminder” from the drop-down menu.

Further Help

Visit this website for more information, or watch this video.